The first thing hear when I wake up was a familiar sigh. As I open my eye, squinting from the brightness, I turn to see the shaman Flaminius. “once again I find you in my care young one” He says, sounding somewhat exasperated. “thankfully nothing much was added to your debt since you were only out for an hour or two” he says. “why… why was I out in the first place?” I ask. “well some idiot, thought that throwing you head first into an extremely tiring physical activity such as forging for a couple hours straight while you’re new to it was a good idea. Your body of course couldn’t handle it, so you collapsed” he responds. “I’ll go call the big idiot in here to get you” he says, getting up. Thinking quickly on all that has happened I call out to Flaminius. “wait” I say. “how much longer am I going to be spending with Vegter before my debt runs out” I ask. “at the rate your going, not much longer. Maybe another 5 to 8 days before your debt is repaid. After that, well, you’re going to have to start making some decisions for yourself” he responds.

Flaminius then leaves to go get Vegter leaving me alone to ponder on my future. I now have the exciting news that I can forge, meaning that my fast learning ability is good for something other than learning languages. I also know that I only have another couple days with Vegter before I’ll have to decide on what to do. As of right now I know that magic is viewed pretty normally around these parts, and that if I revealed my magic I probably wouldn’t be negatively impacted. I don’t really know if I’ll be positively impacted either since I don’t know what mages really do in this society. My only example of a mage is Flaminius, and I’ve mostly just seen him work as a healer, something that I don’t know I can do. Something that I do know for sure though is that I’m probably going to apply for citizenship in this place, and maybe continue working with Vegter from there. I’ll have to wait and see what the best option is though. As of now my only real plan is to finish up my debt, maybe try to get citizenship so that I can stay here, and kinda go with the flow from there. This ‘plan’, if you can even call it that, is pretty lacklustre. I can’t really improve upon it much since even with all the time spent here I still don’t have much information. Spending all my time with people like Vegter, Caden, and Clara, people who don’t usually talk, and feel pretty comfortable in silence isn’t exactly helpful either.

As I’m thinking all this Vegter and Flaminius choose this time to step into the room. “HOW’RE YOU DOING” Vegter yells first thing. Startled out of my ruminations I yelp in surprise. Feeling a sudden deep feeling of annoyance I decide to shout back. “GOOD. AND STOP YELLING” I almost scream. Vegter looks somewhat embarrassed for a few seconds before saying “sorry boy. Got a little worried ‘bout ‘sha for a minute”. Huh, I never really thought Vegter would really care all that much. guess under all that gruffness, and sternness Vegter’s just a really big softy. “I mean, I wouldn’t want ta waste you afta learning that you can forge” Vegter says, breaking whatever good will I bought for him in my head. Guess he’s really just a gruff stony bastard after all. Vegter then proceeds to drag me over to the door, grunting a thank you to Flaminius as we go.

We then proceed to walk all the way back to Vegter’s house. The walk over was pretty uneventful, until suddenly halfway through Vegter said “don’t sha worry boyo, this whole feinting from exhaustion business isn’t going ta stop ya from forging at all”. Being simultaneously somewhat happy and angry, because of the fact that I am forging again, and because Vegter is willing to ignore my safety for what seems like profit. The rest of the walk balk though was again uneventful. Ending with us reaching a stewing Clara yelling at Vegter because of the fact that he is several hours late. Vegter try’s to inform her of what happens to no effect. The yelling continues for a while. While Clara is yelling though I just bypass it all and get into the house to start munching on the cold dreary remains of what once was a radiant, prideful dinner. The yelling goes on for so long that only by the time that I’ve finished dinner do Vegter and Clara come in to eat dinner. Vegter looks like a shamed puppy, Clara still silently fuming. I sit down in front of my finished plate, too afraid to actually ask if I’m excused. They both eat somewhat angrily, meaning they finish their food quickly. Once their finally done I ask to be excused and run when Clara motions for me to leave. As expected by the time I hit my bed I instantly fall into exhaustion laden sleep.

That night I had no dreams.

Waking up the next morning we follow the same routine as every other day, eating whatever Clara has prepped, then leaving with Vegter to pick up Caden. All as usual. The only difference today though is that thoughts of forging are constantly in the back of my mind. We reach Caden’s house as always, pick him up and continue on our way silently. “how were you able to forge something on your first try Vegter’s helper” Caden says. I fell slightly weird at being called Vegter’s helper but since nobody really plans on asking me my name, and Caden can’t exactly call me boy, guess that’s really the only way he can address me. I try to think up an excuse for a couple seconds before just telling the truth. “I’m a fast learner” I say with a slight grin. “I, uh, don’t think that checks out as an answer” Caden says to me. “you didn’t really tell me why you can forge” he says. Crap, guess that vague BS won’t fly with Caden. Before I can start panicking though Vegter comes to the rescue. “doesn’t matter how he does it, Caden, just matters that can” Vegter says. By that time we finally reached the workshop.

“okay boyo, today you’re going to be mostly forging. You’re going ta be forging for one hour on, and then doing one of your many tasks for two hours off. Understand boy” Vegter says. I nod my head, worried that if I open my mouth to speak I might squeak out of excitement. I am sure that I have a beaming smile on my face. Vegter of course notices and says “don’t sha worry lad, by the end of today you’ll be so tired you won’t even be able to smile”. Vegter’s sad excuse of a threat don’t really impact me much, just reminding me that I probably won’t be able to work on my magic. Too bad, but not really that big a deal, because as is with the runes that I already have, I can’t really make much more progress. Huh, maybe coming out as a mage will give me access to more runes. Something to think about as I go about my day I guess. I then proceed to go about my day, doing as Vegter says, alternating between forging things, and going about my other tasks. And as Vegter said by the end of that day I was so pooped out that I was running only fumes. My experience here though tells me that I should just give it a couple days, and my ork-ly endurance will rise to handle the new task.

That night though I fall asleep and, instead of having another empty exhausted dreamless night, that night I dreamt of hammers and magic and the future.